


The Makings of Apologies

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28801368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: When an argument results in Holmes avoiding him the next day, Watson borrows Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen. There’s more than one way to make an apology
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	The Makings of Apologies

I closed the door behind me, listening.

All was quiet. Holmes still had not come home, and I sighed. I doubted he would find somewhere else to sleep tonight, but I hoped he did not avoid me much longer. I set my umbrella aside and took my bags into the kitchen.

Faint noises came from Mrs. Hudson’s spare room, but though I knew she had heard me, she did not come investigate. She knew why I was here. I should have just enough time to cook and clean up before she needed to start cooking supper.

I had an apology to make, and if I could not make it in the sitting room, I could try to make it in the kitchen.

Holmes and I had argued last night, a stupid argument caused more by high tension than any true disagreement. This was not the first time in the last week we had argued, but it was the first time I had lost my temper, and he had avoided me the rest of the night and left before I reached the sitting room this morning. I could not let it go another day, and I had no idea when he would return. Quickly finishing the one thing I needed to do today, I had made a list of what we needed and gone to the shop down the street, hoping to get back home before the looming storm broke.

The sky opened as I reached the kitchen, and sheets of rain lashed the alley behind the flat with a dull roar. At least I had succeeded at one thing.

Mrs. Hudson kept her counters clean as a rule, and there was nothing for me to move as I lined up the various boxes and containers I had bought from the store, supplementing them with a few supplies from various cabinets around the kitchen. I had everything ready in only a few minutes, and I carefully began working as the rain lashed the window.

One of the first things our housekeeper had drilled into me, so many years ago in my childhood home, was the dangers of flour dust. Holding a match to a bowl of flour did nothing, but suspend that same flour in the air, and one spark would set the entire cloud aflame. Calling it “crisping a kitchen,” she had demonstrated at the hearth, and the lesson had stuck with me. I had never yet done such a thing, but her thickly accented voice rang through my mind every time I cooked. Recalling Martha always brought my brother to mind as well, however, and as I had no wish to think about him today, I forced my thoughts to the more recent past.

The argument was my fault, and it was mine to fix. I should be used to Holmes’ comments after so many years sharing rooms, but this one had come after yet another rejection letter arrived, one that had gone so far as to insult my work instead of simply rejecting it. I had snapped something denying his description, and he had replied with something that hindsight told me was meant to be all in good fun.

I had taken it badly and exploded. I had no wish to recall the vitriol I had shot back at him before storming up to my room, but he had been gone by the time I calmed enough to try to apologize. I had come downstairs early this morning to try again, but he had left when I reached the top of the stairs, passing Mrs. Hudson as she brought breakfast to the sitting room.

I sighed and turned my thoughts back to my work, leaning against the table as my leg protested the storm. Quick to flare and quick to cool, I did not lose my temper often, but I lost it explosively when I did. I needed to apologize before it damaged our friendship—a difficult thing when Holmes refused to be in the same room, which was why I had borrowed the kitchen. Holmes had a massive sweet tooth, and I hoped a present of his favorite cake—one he often could not get, more because of the time that went into preparing it than anything else—would reach him where words could not.

Carefully sifting the flour, I stirred in the other dry ingredients then changed tables to begin the tedious—and somewhat painful, due to the storm—process of folding in the cream. Cream cake was a light, nearly fluffy cake Holmes had first tried during our visit to the American west, and he loved it. I had convinced our host to give me the recipe, and even the largest cream cakes never lasted long around him. I would probably make a second while the first cooked. My pans were small, and if I hid the second cake well enough, I could bring it out tomorrow or the next day as an added surprise.

With the cream finally folded into the mix, I set the pan to cook and cleaned up my areas in preparation for the second round. If I hurried, I would have just enough time to mix the batter for the second cake before the first was ready.

Holmes returned as I measured the dry ingredients, bolting straight up the stairs as the front door slammed behind him, and I listened, wondering if he would wander into the kitchen when he did not find me upstairs.

He did not, retreating to his room and closing the door. I smothered a sigh and tried to focus on sifting the flour. It was not often that he avoided me for so long after an argument. I hoped I would be able to fix this.

I had again left the wet ingredients on a wider table on the other side of the kitchen—one I found easier to use when folding in the cream—and with the flour sifted, I picked up the bowl to move across the room. Holmes’ return had distracted me and slowed me down, and I needed to check the first cake. I hurried across the kitchen, intending to set the bowl on the table and check the cake before I continued mixing.

I tried to move too quickly, however, and my leg twinged halfway across the kitchen, protesting both my pace and the storm outside. I tripped on the table leg when I tried to compensate, and I hit the ground with a painful thump. The bowl flew out of my hands to clatter on the ground a few feet away from the oven, kicking up a cloud of flour that reached the flames a moment later.

The flour ignited with a loud pop, followed by an abrupt _whoosh_ , and I reflexively covered my head with my arms as heat flared right above me.

“Doctor!”

The intense heat only lasted a moment, and I cautiously pushed myself upright as a crash sounded upstairs and Mrs. Hudson rushed out of the spare room.

“Doctor!” she said again when she saw me on the floor near the oven.

“I’m alright, Mrs. Hudson,” I replied quickly, though the continued twinge in my leg kept me on the floor. “Sorry about the mess.”

Footsteps thumped down the stairs before she could do more than wave off the apology, still staring at me to make sure I was alright, and Holmes bolted into the room a moment later, immediately spotting me on the floor.

“Watson?”

He strode closer, checking me for injury, and I tried to wave off the concern in his gaze as the spasm eased and I cautiously pulled myself to my feet. While I was glad he was no longer avoiding me, this was not how I had planned to achieve that.

“I’m fine, Holmes. I just tripped.”

He continued staring at me, probably noting the noticeably shorter hair on my arms, and I turned to where Mrs. Hudson alternated between glancing at me and surveying the—thankfully minor—damage.

“I did not intend to crisp your kitchen, Mrs. Hudson, but I will clean it up. I doubt it will take long.”

She waved off the apology. “I was going to clean everything later anyway. I can get it then. Did you at least get one made?”

“One what?”

I had nearly forgotten about it in the chaos of the flour explosion, and I spun toward the oven, quickly checking and removing the small cake just barely beginning to burn as Holmes voiced the question. Holmes glanced at the ingredients spread over the table, then at the cake itself as I cast a grateful glance toward Mrs. Hudson.

“You were making a cream cake.”

Mrs. Hudson took herself to the other room at Holmes’ questioning words, and I nodded, nearly afraid to glance up for fear he would scorn the apology.

“I should not have blown up at you like that,” I answered quietly, busying my hands by sprinkling sugar over the still-hot cake, “but I can’t apologize if you are avoiding me. I was going to leave it on the table.”

Silence answered me, and, finished with the sugar, I finally glanced up to find surprise in his gaze, mixed with a bit of guilt.

“I did not know you were home,” he replied. “Otherwise, I would have brought it in here.”

“Brought what?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, trying not to grin. “All in good time. What happened?”

I affected a scowl, looking at the crisped room again. “The flour hit a spark.”

He stared at me for a moment, obviously trying to figure out where I was going with that, and I remembered how little time he spent in a kitchen.

“Flour is extremely flammable when suspended in air,” I answered the unspoken question. “One spark ignites the entire cloud.”

He glanced between me and the room. “So that sound I heard…”

He let the question trail off, and I finished, “was a ball of fire traveling through the kitchen. I am just glad cream cakes only need about a cup of flour for a normal pan, and my pans are half that size. The cloud was small. This could have been much worse.” He glanced between me and the room again but made no answer, and I started cleaning up both the other ingredients and the mess caused by the flour. He joined me after a moment, and a few minutes saw us up in the sitting room, where he set the cake on the table and disappeared into his bedroom.

He came out a moment later and handed me a folded piece of paper.

“What is this?” I turned over the sheet, seeing nothing on the outside.

“That is why I left early this morning. Open it.”

He cut into the cake, trying to pretend he was not watching me, and I unfolded the piece of heavy paper to read the note inside.

“Dr. Watson,” it read, “thank you for submitting A Study in Scarlet for my review. I think it is a fine start, and I would love to help you edit it and turn it into a publishable piece…”

I stared at the words, then looked back up to find Holmes watching me, a grin twitching his face as he ate a second small piece of the still-warm cake.

“You found me an editor?” He hated when I spoke the obvious, but I could not get my tongue to say anything else.

“Keep reading.”

“…I believe Beeton’s Christmas Annual is looking for a crime solving series to publish this year, and we should be able to get it ready in time to make the August submittal deadline.”

“He wants to _publish_ it?! Holmes!”

The grin on his face became more visible at the obvious surprise on mine, and he cut a third piece of cake before frowning and pointedly moving the plate out of reach.

“You dropped the rejection letter when you left the room last night,” he told me, avoiding eye contact as his ears turned red.

And he had read it, of course, quickly realizing why I had not responded to his comment the way he had expected. But if this letter was why he had left early this morning, why had he left last night?

“Someone once told me,” he continued, still avoiding my gaze, “that the more rudely an opinion is stated, the less it matters.”

He had—

I grinned, moving to sit in my chair as he left the half-eaten cake on the table to join me.

“Someone told me the same thing when I was a boy,” I answered, “but what does that make my writing?”

“Drivel,” he shot back quickly, and I smirked, for while the word itself was derogatory, both his tone and the amusement now in his gaze changed the connotation. He did not hate my stories quite as much as he let on.

For all the hours I had spent learning how to deduce, I apparently needed more practice, and I wondered how many other times I had been too busy listening to his words to note what he said. Not only had he spent the morning finding me an editor, but he had gone to the one that had so rudely rejected me and told them exactly what they should do with their opinion.

“I am sorry for blowing up on you.”

He waved me off. “I should not have said what I did.”

I relaxed back into my chair with a grin, and he moved the topic to other things, going back to the table twice more to get another piece of cake. He would have the entire thing devoured by supper at this rate, no matter that he had tried to slow down by moving it out of reach earlier.

If Mrs. Hudson let me back into her kitchen, perhaps I would make that second one in a few days—hopefully without crisping the kitchen in the process.

Or maybe not, considering he still insisted my stories were “uninteresting drivel.”

“How about _you_ write a forty-thousand-word novel, and we can compare the two?”

He merely twitched a grin and fired back a similar response, and the resultant bickering lasted half the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always welcome :)


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